Lose Fat in a Cold Room

Most of us think that burning fat requires sweat. Lots of
sweat. We run on treadmills, suffer on the elliptical, struggle with the weight
machine, just hoping to burn some of that pesky fat. Did you know that there’s
an easier way to burn fat? Just turn down the thermostat!

Dr. W.D. van Marken Lichtenbelt at the Maastricht
University in the Netherlands recently published the results of his research in
the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism. His study found that
an easy way to burn fat is to make the body colder. He does not propose ice
baths or rolling around in the snow naked (ouch!), but rather a slow decline in
household temperature to the mid 60’s.

In a cool room (or a hot room, for that matter) your body
maintains a constant 98.6 degree internal temperature. That means that your
body is typically generating heat to keep this toasty norm. That is the key
to Dr. Lichtenbelt’s discovery.

The Mitochondria

It turns out that we have two general types of fat: white
fat and brown fat. This “cool room” technique targets the brown fat in our
bodies. That’s because brown fat has cellular powerhouses called mitochondria,
which generate heat. In contrast, the white fat pretty much just sits there.

The brown fat can be triggered to generate heat by
exposing the body to cooler air temperatures. The mitochondria in the brown fat cells generate heat, and
by doing so, burn themselves up. Ta-da! No more fat cell.

For best results, Dr. Lichtenbelt recommends varying the
room temperature rather than setting it lower and leaving it there. In a cool environment, our bodies can become accustomed to lower temperatures pretty quickly and therefore
reduce the burning of these brown fat cells. So nudge your thermostat up and
down randomly across your day, or move from warm room to cool room occasionally.

You may shiver once in a while, but the loss of fat will
give you a nice inner glow!